Report Summary

British farming is having its worst stretch in decades. Around 30% of English farms made a loss in 2023/24, cereal farms lost an average of £27,400 in 2024/25, and input costs are forecast to be about 30% higher in 2026 than in 2020. After the 2024 inheritance-tax changes, farmer optimism collapsed from 70% to 12%. The usual story is that farmers, battered and defensive, will resist anything that looks like a move away from livestock. This report tests that assumption and finds it mostly wrong.

To do so, we surveyed 115 UK livestock and arable farmers (in partnership with Stock Free Farming) and supplemented the survey with one-to-one interviews, an industry-and-farmer roundtable, and a review of the past year’s policy developments. The sample is self-selecting rather than nationally representative (a point the report is upfront about) so the figures are best read as a signal that challenges common assumptions, not as national statistics.

The signal is striking. Within the sample, 63% of farmers said they would be open to alternatives to livestock farming if those alternatives were financially viable, and 49% would be willing to stop livestock farming altogether on the same condition. The sticking point was consistently money and risk, not ideology: 93% felt the government could do more for farmers struggling financially, and 70% would support policies offering financial incentives to move into non-livestock activities. Mandatory animal-welfare labelling drew near-universal backing: 85% of farmers and 91% of consumers.

“The one that stands out to me most is, you know, the financial support to diversify, and try new options… because, like I said, there just isn’t the money there, especially in livestock.

– Farmer / survey respondent

The report frames alternative proteins as one diversification route among several — protein crops like peas and fava beans, regenerative agriculture, rewilding on marginal land, renewable energy, and supplying inputs to novel-food producers — rather than a cure-all. It sets out six areas where government can act: capital and training support, payments for alternative land uses, transparent welfare labelling, restrictions on low-welfare imports, and targeted investment in alternative proteins that favours British-grown crops. Hover over the boxes below for more information.

The report also makes a food-security case: 85% of UK farmland is used to feed or raise animals yet delivers only 32% of our calories, and a 20% shift away from intensive chicken and pork could lift UK protein self-sufficiency from 57% to roughly 92%.

The throughline, borrowed from the Dutch transition that went badly wrong, is that farmers aren’t opposed to change — they’re opposed to being blindsided by it. You can read the full report, commissioned by the Alternative Proteins Association, below.